Ginger Wildheart And The Sinners/Marc Valentine/Boss Caine –
The Brickmakers, Norwich, Wednesday 26th October, 2022
Set List: Ghosts And Drunks/Truck Stop/Father Time/High Hopes/Better Ways To Get Free.
Boss Caine (Real name, Daniel Lucas) was 1st on the stage. He started off with 'Ghosts And Drunks' which was a nice number to begin on with the crowd who were enjoying the rawness of the song. I did feel that the sound was too loud for this style of music. If it had been a bit lower it would have sounded way better, but there you go.
As Boss Caine carried on it felt like we were listening to a story of his life. It's true to say that he had his own style and sound which makes a difference nowadays. I felt that he could have interacted with the crowd more but besides that I couldn’t fault him.
By closing the set with 'Better Ways To Get Free', it completely felt like we had come to the end of the journey with Boss Caine. I expect we'll see him on more tours with other bands due to his style of music.
Set list: Last Train Tonight/Linear Slopes/Arcades/Zodiac Hotel/Mornington Ave/Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow/Break My Heart Anyway/Electric Chains/Swiss Launderette.
Well this was totally different from Boss Caine with Mr. Valentine and his band getting the crowd going. In fact, some fans having a ball and singing their heart and souls out.
Marc was a showman from the word go. He embraced the crowd and made The Brickmakers come alive. The man has been around a while and it shows in his stage presence. 'Last Train tonight' was his opening number and he sounded different to what you hear on YouTube. His voice had more of a gritty edge to it. Some artists sound better live than recorded as was the case with this cat!
As the show went on Marc just excelled to the vibes from the audience in here tonight. He even had a small following who made their presence known. This seem to lift him to another level.
When I saw that 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' was on the set list I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately though, I felt it didn’t suit Marc’s talent and voice but it went down well with the congregation.
Set List: The Road/That Smile/Dirty Water (Cover: Status Quo)/Six Years Gone (Cover: The Georgia Satellites)/Lately Always/Wasted Times/Key Of Love/Walk Of Shame/Broken Down Angel (Cover: Nazareth)/ Willin' (Cover: Little Feat)/Arms Of Love/Not The Staying Kind/Footprints In The Sand/Code Of The Road/ Breakout/The Weight (Cover: The Band)/Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll (Cover: Tom Petty).
As Ginger Wildheart and The Sinners came on stage there was an unusual buzz within the band, since they all coming on laughing and smiling. It was like witnessing a group of teenagers who had been up to no good!
The reason been being was that they had been at a gig in London earlier in the day and were slightly worse for wear. This didn’t affect the talents of any of the band members though. This actually made for a very interesting night. The whole band were spot on and you wouldn’t have been able to tell they were slightly drunk until they started talking.
They started off with 'The Road', and you were instantly hit with an amazing sound and killer vocals as well as every member of the band having a smile on their faces. These guys were playing for fun and loving it. The crowd were too and couldn’t wait for the next song.
As the tracks went on, we got more and more jokes and stories from the band members. At times the crowd were laughing so much you could have mistaken it for a stand up comedy act. But moments later they came at you with another amazing track which brought you back to the gig. This carried on through out the night and made for a special show.
While Ginger, the leader of the Sinners was chatting to the crowd, their frontman had an issue with his guitar being out of tune, so he tried retuning it. He couldn’t get it tuned so threw the gadget on the floor, smashed it to bits and said, "Well that was crap!". He then played next track and after the song Ginger said, "That’s the best you played it on tour!." With that, the crowd started to laugh and along came more stories.
I wish I had recorded the gig because it was one of the best ever I’ve seen, especially regarding the banter comedy jokes and stories. At one point, they all started to play a song and the whole band got it wrong on the intro. You simply cannot make this sh*t up! You really can't! Hahahaha!
They promised us early on they would play on till the last possible second they were allowed to and kept their word as well since they finished with 'Breakout' at about 22:15. We thought that would be it, but no, Ginger And The Sinners decided to play on. This was done with the help of the crowd being asked what they would like to hear them sing.
So many suggestions were shouted to Ginger that they were spoilt for choice. So off they went, blasting out one song after another. Then the band asked the merchandise girl called Sophie to come up on stage. She was actually in shock and couldn’t believe it. You could see how excited she was when she got up there as well.
Sophie joined in and was encouraged by the lead member of The Sinners to join in more, blowing the crowd away with her vocals. She performed several songs and as it got to closing time for the venue, the band managed to squeeze one more song in. When it finished the crowd totally erupted because the night had been such a blast.
Sophie came back to the merchandise desk to another lady who was helping sell merchandise. She was on a high and jumping up and down with the other lady like they had won the lottery. When the fans came over to buy merchandise more and more where saying, “Wow! You were amazing up there!”.
This was a special night and I feel many fans won’t see another gig like this again. This wasn’t a normal gig and this isn’t a normal review.
By Paul 'Animal' Hampson